Every traveler has at least a few stories about a flight not going as planned, but John Legend and Chrissy Teigen now have one for the books.
The husband-and-wife duo set out from Los Angeles International Airport Tuesday on a flight bound for Tokyo, but after eight hours in the air, they ended up back where they started. Teigen live-tweeted much of her “flying first,” resulting in a surge of social media attention pointed at All Nippon Airways and the airport.
“LAX —> LAX flight complete. Flight time, 8 hours and 20 minutes,” Teigen tweeted after the plane, which was en route to Tokyo Narita Airport, learned a passenger was aboard the wrong flight and turned back toward California. Teigen and Legend were aboard Flight 175, which left LAX at 11:36 a.m. and arrived at the same location at 7:33 p.m., the airline said.
“During the flight, the cabin crew became aware that one of the passengers boarded the incorrect flight and notified the pilot,” a statement from the airline said. “As part of the airline’s security procedure, the pilot in command decided to return to the originating airport, where the passenger was disembarked.”
Thanks to Teigen’s live tweeting, which gave her followers a mix of video, photo and personal commentary, information about the incident was made public early on. The model, who has lived in New York City with Legend and is reportedly in talks to purchase a $10 million penthouse in Nolita, said she heard attendants say the passenger had a United ticket.
“Why did we all get punished for this one person’s mistake? Why not just land in Tokyo and send the other person back? How is this the better idea, you ask? We all have the same questions,” she wrote, adding that the mishap “majorly inconvenienced” about 150 people on board.
When the flight finally landed in LAX, Teigen said everyone aboard was forced to leave the plane. She was moved to a holding lounge where she watched Bravo and ate ramen for nearly four hours before being boarded on a new flight to her destination.
“Thank you so much for taking me on this awesome vacation, babe,” she said in a video.
Teigen joked that she wished she could “be the Snowden” to her 9.2 million Twitter followers, but that the crew wouldn’t give her much information on why the flight returned.
“No one will answer my questions. I told them I won’t tell anybody, but I think they know what’s happening here on the Twitter,” she wrote.
According to Los Angeles television station KTLA, the FBI arrived on the scene to interview passengers after the agency received a report of a “possible stowaway” aboard the flight.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment and ANA said it is continuing to investigate the incident.
With Reuters
